Well, well... 

Those of you who've followed the various arguments I've tracked here on the MCGW issue (manmade catastrophic global warming) may have noted that, a few months back, the IPCC (a UN committee on climate change) was forced by new data to revise their earlier conclusions regarding ocean rises in a worst case scenario.

Back in 2000, their report warned that oceans could rise as much as 30" due to global warming.  But now, they've grudgingly admitted that the new worst case scenario is 19". 

This is a drop of almost half of their worst case scenario, which of course entails similar drops in the "less than the worst" case scenarios. 

In other words, if what the UN and the "scientific community" (which in this definition is any scientist seeking a grant) are saying about MCGW is true, then it's likely the oceans will rise only a few inches.

IF what they're saying is true.  That's a big one.

 For now I offer you some ripe juicy cherries, the favorite fruit of the IPCC. 

You see, it seems the charts which were used by the IPCC and by Al Gore to 'prove' that CO2 levels 150 years ago were much lower than today were, well, cherrypicked. 

The Canadian Free Press has given us the chart, a sea of dots on a grid representing CO2 levels on the side and the years passing on the bottom, from the 1850's into the present time.
The CFP have handily circled the dots which are the samples chosen for use by the IPCC.  The dots are all over the chart, even above 500 parts per million (current levels are less than 400), but the circled dots are all in the lower part of the range, almost all at the bottom.

Fraud, plain and simple, has been committed by the UN committee on climate change, fraud which they are using relentlessly in their efforts to convince the public to vote for candidates who will punish, regulate and TAX industry and the industrial leaders of the world (yeah, that's us, folks).

And if this case has been discovered, there are doubtless many more such cases which have yet to be.  As Michael Crichton said a few years back of the furious marketing effort for this dubious theory, "this isn't how scientific theories are presented.  It's how products are sold."

We are indeed being sold something, and the price is staggering. 

As Groucho Marx once said to his dinner companion upon glancing at the bill, "this is outrageous!  If I were you I wouldn't pay this!"

IN the post below about the interview with the ape--
 
I returned to the story linked therein and found a video link on the ABC news site.  I watched it, and it served to confirm my suspicions about the nature of the 'conversation'.

The bonobo pushed buttons with pictures on them, and the spoken word was played on a speaker.  The interviewer said "show me carrots" and the ape pushed the button, whereupon we hear the word "carrots".  Then the interviewer said "thank you" and the monkey 'said' "you're welcome".

I do not believe the monkey is trained by Emily Post on proper social graces.  I DO believe it's been trained to press that button when it hears the words "thank you".  

This does not show anything more about apes than we've already learned.  They have working intellects, can be trained, can hear and understand words (just like dogs and cats and birds can, as I've already said).  And they tend to make efforts in the areas which reward them, e.g. with snacks and other things that give them pleasure.

The news story appears to implicitly endorse the notion that this is a breakthrough of some sort.  I just don't see it.   It's merely the use of newer technology to establish in a more entertaining fashion  the same truths which had already been observed.

Again, show me an ape that will accept the benefits of delayed gratification, act altruistically (for the benefit of strangers, not its own children), question the mystery of its own existence and attempt to agree with its fellows on beneficial rules of common behavior, and I'll begin to believe apes are more than highly developed animals.

Look, I'm still trying to understand the minds of that other nominally intelligent species, the modern American liberal.   Don't give me apes. 

Yahoo News has this story today on the first quarter economic numbers. 

A couple of thoughts come to mind, first about the number itself, 0.6%.

Remember that these numbers are always revised after more data comes in, and that most of them for the past several years were revised up.  Given the headline, "economy nearly stalls", I suspect the article overstates the case for despair, as the media is wont to do with George W. Bush and his tax-cut-boosted economy.

But second, the article pointed out that business spending was considerably lower but did not examine in sufficient depth the possible reasons for that.  Housing is still a bit slow, sure, but consumer spending is as good as ever.  Those who earn money know full well how good it is out there, and their actions show it.  The housing market is less an indicator of a sluggish economy than a natural consequence of excess speculation, a running of prices followed by a normal adjustment.   Ask yourself how many commercials you've heard on the radio or seen on late night cable about real estate seminars by experts who will teach you how to get rich.  People are trying it, and the housing market simply reflects an excess of houseflipping and a runup of prices.  Nothing like that can last forever, and now it's crested the peak and it's going back to a more normal level. 

And if business spending is lower, perhaps business knows something about the future-- a future with Democrats in control of tax and regulation legislation.  Bush's tax cuts are marked for death, which is a defacto tax increase on all Americans.  Business is similarly targeted, to pay for more health care and to pay global warming taxes and so forth.  

Perhaps business is simply tightening its belts in advance of the coming storm.   The 2.5% 4th quarter growth number is gloomily compared to the 0.6% first quarter number, and the changing of the guard in the Senate and House leaps out at me as an obvious change from the one to the other. 

I"m just sayin'.  Business ain't stupid.

Drudge today links to a story about talking apes, and a journalist who 'interviewed' one.

Much is made of the obvious, that the apes can understand words in our language, and can speak back to us using symbols on a keyboard.

But a close analysis of the 'conversation' gives me the distinct impression that the apes are basing their efforts to understand us on the well-understood link between 'conversation' and getting the snacks they want.

The writer said "egg" and the ape pushed the egg button.  Likewise with "M and M".  Are you seeing a pattern here?

Writer--   "want some coffee?"

Ape-- (vigorous nodding of head)

Can I make a point here?  My dog knew her name, knew "hungry?", and knew "wanna go for a walk?"  My cats all know "where's the bug?", and when I say it they start swiveling their little heads looking for the tiny bug that I just told them is flying around the room. 

I read about an African grey parrot in New York who could speak complete sentences with appropriate context, as in "I wanna ride in the car!  Remember?  The car?  I wanna ride in the car!"  The bird was trying to make the dense human understand what it wanted, so it could have what it wanted.  Any animal that depends on humans for anything knows how to do that.

It is clear to me that the higher animals have the capacity for rudimentary language.  Whales clearly talk to each other, as do dolphins.  Listen to the birds in the trees, for heaven's sake.  If that ain't gabbin', I don't know what is.

But the author here appears to want to believe there's more to this story.  And there isn't.

Anyone who's had pets knows that animals understand language which relates to their daily experiences and especially to what they want, what pleases them. 

When they teach an ape to delay its gratification, act altruistically, question its own reason for being, and attempt to agree on commonly held rules of behavior with other apes, then I"ll believe there's more to this story.  These are things which distinguish man from animals, and they are not purely matters of intellectual or linguistic ability. 

Tell the bonobo that if he gives me his only banana today, I"ll give him three bananas tomorrow.  If he gives me the banana and then goes to sit and wait, I'll begin to go along with the scientojournalists on this one.

Al Gore is troubled, dear reader.

He's jealous of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton...  jealous, that is, of the media coverage they get.  Apparently, he thinks that all the media time we devote to celeb shallowness ought to be devoted instead to propaganda for the global warming movement.

I agree that celebrity pap is indicative of some sort of cultural problem in this country, although in my view the exact nature of the problem is not yet clear enough to accurately diagnose, let alone solve.  Perhaps I could think more clearly about it if I stopped buying those magazines at the checkout stand, but enough about me. 

It it is easy to decry our national obsession with shallow celebrity without really saying anything substantial.  Gore does exactly this when he says we are 'vulnerable as a democracy to mass and continuing distraction'. 

Distraction from what, he does not say, but it's hard not to conclude that he means himself.  Or perhaps more precisely, the message of the coming disaster of global warming.

Think about this assertion of his for a moment.  In this country, a person cannot even walk down the street without being assaulted with the message of the coming disaster of global warming.  It's in every newspaper on every corner, it's blaring out of the car radios and in the windows of the TV shops and off the colorful magazine racks...  I'm so 'aware' of the coming disaster of global warming, I"m SICK AND TIRED OF HEARING ABOUT IT.  And of course, there is a purpose to this media saturation of the theme.  Generations from now, they believe, every person will be emotionally and mentally conditioned to react with revulsion at the very word "corporation", to cast their votes en masse for whichever leftist candidate complains the loudest about the military-industrial complex.  They are making their best effort to bring about a public distrust of business that will result in a wave of demand for government control of it, and of its wealth.

It is nothing less than the new communism, complete with Stalinist programming of the public mind.  The plan is made possible by the willing and earnest cooperation of our media, pretending to 'speak truth to power', to be neutral and to concern itself with facts and so forth, while actually working feverishly to help the left achieve this reprogramming of the mind of our next generation.

But Gore believes, apparently, that Paris Hilton and Britney Spears are hindering the process, focusing the public mind on something other than him and his one note song.  He has the gall to loudly complain that the public is brainwashed by celeb gossip media, and thus is less available to be brainwashed by HIM.

Remember the basic points I've written about before here.

Clouds, or water vapor, are 95% of global warming gases.  Water vapor is primarily responsible for the effect of holding heat near the earth's surface that would otherwise dissipate into space.  And remember that the computer models used by Gore and others are NOT ABLE TO PREDICT THE MOVEMENTS AND ACTIONS OF WATER VAPOR.

So 95% of the cause of the greenhouse effect is simply ignored by Gore's vaunted research.  This means he's focused on 5% of the cause, giving it much too much credit for the effect.

But what about this 5%?  It's various gases, and CO2 makes up about 2/3 of it, or shall we say 3.5% of the total.

And of this, manmade CO2 makes up about 3%.

Yes, three percent of three percent.  About 1/1000 of the gases which cause retention of heat on and near the earth's surface are made by man. 

Given that they have NO IDEA what the 950/1000ths of greenhouse gases do, it's a bit difficult for me to accept that they can point to 1/1000th of the total gases and give it the credit for their predicted looming catastrophes.

But even if their chart is real, and a correlation between higher global temps and increased global CO2 is real, what does it mean?  Gore says CO2 causes global warming.  But why do the CO2 charts lag behind the temperature charts, sometimes by hundreds or even thousands of years?  Sensible people, third graders and some highly trained horses would make the assumption that the temperature increases caused the increased CO2, not the other way around.

But not Gore.  He simply does not mention this 'inconvenient truth' in his Oscar-winning movie.

So next time you get sick of Britney and Paris and so forth, stop and thank God that these fine women are voluntarily taking up media space that would otherwise be occupied by 'the former next president of the United States'.

Read this article and flex your imagination just a little.

The British NHS, the government organization responsible for administering the "FREE" health care of British citizens, has made yet another effort at controlling costs.  I'm not sure the article is written well enough to give the reader a full understanding of what's now the norm for British government-employed dentists, but the gist is more than sufficient to understand the problem.

Apparently, the dentists are now paid the same, in general terms, for filling one tooth as for filling eleven.  Their earnings are capped, in essence, by an artificial government diktat which forces dentists to charge roughly the same fee for patients with HUGE problems as for those with few problems.  It's some sort of artificial "unit of service" or some such, and it definitely does not take the difficulty of treating patients with multiple problems into account.

So the dentists have responded by simply turning away patients with very bad teeth. 

It's analogous to a mechanic ordered by the government to charge the same fee for a transmission replacement as he does for an oil change. 

Any time you have mandates to force the market to change, the market responds with changes on the other sides of the equations.  Nobody can work at a loss.  If you cap prices, people will simply stop selling the product and performing the service.  

Next, the brits will probably mandate the treatment of these people.  It will be interesting to see how the dentists respond to that.

This is Hillary care.  Coming soon to a dentists chair near you. 

It's been clear for years now that John Edwards is a major league creep, an unreal sort of guy, saying and doing whatever he thinks people want, with no real center or core.

But this little narrative in the Powerline blog today ought to give you chills.  It gave John Kerry chills.

Takes one to know one.

The amazing holy magnificent magical infallible UN is doubtless blushing over this.

Lebanese army tanks and battalions have fully engaged a well armed and dangerous group of terrorists in a southern Lebanon refugee camp full of Palestinians.  "Innocent civilians" are being killed by the score, and it shows little sign of abating.

At least one well known name, an al Qaeda guy who has planned attacks in the past, has been killed, proving that the ripe recruiting grounds of a Palestinian refugee camp were apparently too juicy to ignore for terrorists looking for the next suicide bomber.

And through it all echoes the great unanswered question--

Isn't there a UN peacekeeping force there?  To stop things just like this?

Well, yes, there is a force in southern Lebanon.  A UN force, consisting of Indians (last I heard), ready to step up and blame Israel for anything that might happen.  But since Israel is sitting at home, not responsible for this, the UN peacekeeping force seems to have no role worth playing.  They might have already gone home, just to get out of danger.  :-)

But if Israel should somehow decide to intervene, I"m sure the UN will promptly redeploy these magificent troops to the danger zone.  AFter all, SOMEBODY's gotta blame Israel.

The rest of the world is sensibly moving away from the coldhearted destructiveness of socialism.

Meanwhile, THIS country is lurching blindly toward what countries like France are running AWAY from.

In light of the present threat of a mass amnesty bill for illegal immigrants and its attendant drawbacks (economic damage, giant tax increases on the productive, and worst of all, the loading up on Democrat voters and the forced irrelevancy of the Republican party that will surely follow), it is eye-opening to read this story and learn that the French are most definitely not going to give mass amnesty and citizenship to THEIR millions of immigrants.  Wouldn't be prudent.

So why would WE do something so leftist when the leftest of leftist socialists reject it as imprudent and bad for their nation?

Ask the senior balloon from Massachusetts.  Or Nancy (influence) Pedlosi. 

Again--  when 12 million or more people suddenly and dramatically owe their new status and their brighter futures to Democrats, and with groups like The Race (la Raza) to help with the political activism and voter registration drives, these razor-thin election margins and these Republican victories will become a thing of the past. 

Because 12 million people is darn near 5% of the population of this country. 

That is a HUGE change in demographics and politics.  Assuming it stops at 12 million, which is highly unlikely.  I'd guess the real number, even today, is more like 20 million, and of course the migration will continue.

I never thought I'd see the French reject a policy as too socialist and the USA adopt it practically on the same day.

Sacre bleu.  peut-etre l'heure est arrivee pour remenager a la France. 

apres tout, je peut deja parler la langue...  :-)

 Slowly, molasses-like, a creeping insistence for knowledge is catching up with Diane Feinstein, the good senator from California.

Her positions in various Senate committees are apparently too convenient for her to ignore, and the various ways in which she has ensured the flow of taxpayer dollars to her husband's business interests are, well, nauseating.

The latest involves making a profit by denying medicare claims to poor people, if you can believe that.

And remember, when Nancy Pelosi was supervising the language of the minimum wage bill (which in the end was added to the Iraq war funding bill, so that Pelosi would be able to say that Bush vetoed minimum wage increases), she carefully made sure that American Samoa was left off the list of American territories and states which were required to increase their wages to workers.

American Samoa, coincidentally, is where Pelosi's husband has various manufacturing interests.

So it's vital that low wage employees be given the dignity of a decent living, unless they work for Mr. Pelosi.

Nauseating.

Thank goodness these sorts of comments are beginning to be more numerous.

And this in spite of the visible attempts of the press to represent only the one side of the debate.

Remember that the oft-cited computer models of manmade catastrophic global warming are unable to grasp the complexity of the daily movements of water vapor around the globe.

That's right, clouds are not factored into global warming calculations.  And water vapor is the greenhouse gas that accounts for 95% of the effect of global warming.

Of the remaining 5%, CO2 makes up about 2/3, or 3.6% of the total.  And manmade CO2?

it's 3% of that.  just over 1 tenth of 1 percent of greenhouse gases.  about 1/1000th, that is.

So if mankind doubled its CO2 output next year, it would go from 1/1000th to 1/500th of the total greenhouse gases in our atmosphere.

That's about 1 inch in the height of a four story building, folks.   I for one am underwhelmed.

Never has their been a more vigorous, shrill and determined effort to convince the masses of something that isn't true.  It's leftist ideology at its worst, and I"m sorry to say that this is only the beginning. 

I hope that Augie Auer is right, and in five years we'll be looking back and laughing at the MCGW flacks.  I think we've already had a glimpse of that, in the form of the unimpressive hurricane season of 2006.  But the flacks are feeling pressure, and it's making them more shrill and insistent, and thus more dangerous. 

Especially with Dems in power.

As the estimable Mr. Johnson of Little Green Footballs notes this morning, BBC reporter Alan Johnston has supporters among the Palestinians.  They are protesting his kidnapping in Gaza and demanding that the thugs who did it release him immediately.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6653195.stm

At a Palestinian-owned restaurant in London, expat Palestinians gathered to send a loud message to the kidnappers, who took Johnston from the streets of Gaza nine weeks ago.  Here's the meat--

Restaurant owner Mohammed Zomlot, who is from Gaza, said the Palestinian community in the UK wanted to support Mr Johnston.

"I feel that we are the people who really should care about Gaza, and who should care about Alan," he said.

"Because Alan, at the end of the day, he's one of the people who cares about us and he works for us, and that's why we have a responsibility to protect him, and we have to ask for his immediate release."

The viewers know it, because it's made obvious by the content and tone of the coverage.  And you see here that the Palestinians know it well, and even respect the BBC for it.

Only the Beeb itself refuses to own up to having taken sides and cast their support to the Arabs against Israel.

There's a reason people like Alan Johnston walk the streets of Gaza without bodyguards.  They rightly do not expect to be kidnapped by the people they're helping.

This only goes to show how disorganized and chaotic the Palestinian side really is. 

I saw a story on cnnmoney.com today which purported to offer solutions to high prices at the pump.  Among the solutions proffered in the headline was 'increase taxes'.

Now he had me hooked.  How would an increase in taxes on gasoline, carbon, oil production, whatever, cause pump prices to decrease?

Turns out the author admits, in his own story, that a tax increase would not decrease pump prices, not least because it would RAISE those prices.

"economists say the most efficient way to reduce demand ... is to make it more expensive."

Well, duh.  But how does that help the consumer?

"Now this might not bring prices down at the pump."

Actually, it will increase them.

"but it would most likely reduce demand, thus lowering wholesale prices and the profits currently reaped by oil companies and their shareholders."

So how does it help you, the consumer, if you are forced to use less gasoline because it has become prohibitively expensive?  And how does it help you if the oil companies make less money? 

It doesn't, of course.  It might make some liberals feel better, stick it to the man and so forth.  But it doesn't help our economy.  And "their shareholders" include many millions of ordinary people who have pension plans which purchase and hold oil company stocks. 

So if you're somebody who might perversely enjoy "sticking it to the man" by cutting the profits of the evil oil companies, consider your own pension plan, and ask yourself the serious question-- am I damaging my own retirement?  If you support leftist tax-increase policies on oil companies, windfall profits taxes or carbon taxes or production taxes, that's exactly what you're doing. 

And even if your own retirement doesn't invest in oil companies, what right do you have to damage the retirements of millions of hardworking non-rich Americans just because you're offended by how much money the oil companies make?

The more retirement plans are stressed by government-caused stock price decreases, the more people will be on government assistance in their later years, and the higher taxes you will pay, on EVERYTHING.

But here's my favorite part--

"The tax revenue, presumably, would be returned to the public for its own benefit, perhaps in the form of better mass transit, cheaper health insurance, or gasoline tax credits for poor people." 

Even this guy can't posit this with a straight face.  He had to put in the word "presumably".

And remember, the government has an overhead of about 72%.  So anything 'returned to the public for its own benefit' is a sad shadow of what it was when it was TAKEN from the public.

There is nothing more expensive and less efficient than government.  That is the LAST solution that should be applied to any problem.

Having tried to make the case for tax increases on oil companies as a way to, indirectly, over time, reduce demand, the author feels compelled to point out that "people representing a wide variety of interests are open to this idea".  Of course, he doesn't go on to tell us who they are, or what wide variety of interests they represent. 

I'm figuring it's everyone from the far left to the extreme far left, a nice wide variety.

To his credit, the author goes on to quote people who say it's unlikely that anything with the word "tax" will ever be accepted by the public.  His source, though, adds "and that's a pity". 

There's that wide variety of interests again.
 
After exhaustively cheerleading a tax increase, the author moves on to his number two notion, increasing efficiency mandates on the car companies.  Our car manufacturers are on life support already, and now they should have to increase their mileage by 30%, in the opinion of Mr. Hargreaves.

If you're starting to see a pattern of proffered solutions which all involve government action, you're onto something.

Number three on the solutions list is "mandating biofuels use".  The old "alternative fuels" thing.

Never mind that biofuels cost more than gasoline and require manufacturing changes for automobiles to use them...  and never mind that these facts do NOT point to lower pump prices...  it's a government action, and that's good enough for Steve.

We finally get to supply sider economics at number four on the list of solutions, 'require companies to increase gas production'.  He believes, apparently, that the oil companies are conspiring to hold back just enough product to increase the prices at the retail level.  

But we all know that liberals have put an end to refinery expansion and building, on environmental grounds.  This author proposes that refineries simply operate at increased capacity, as if the 97 to 98% capacity of today just isn't enough.

Number five on the solution list is 'build a gasoline reserve' like the national petroleum reserve.  He immediately admits that it would be nuttily expensive and difficult.  And don't forget, that national petroleum reserve only keeps the wolf out for 1-2 days.

Finally, the sixth item on the list approaches the real problem-- oil prices per barrel are too high because there's too much demand and too little supply.  So let's drill for more oil, in America! 

Not gonna happen, says Steve's source, because 'people will oppose us expanding production anywhere".

Well, yes and no.  Some oppose increasing American production, but on the same grounds as they oppose refinery expansion.  They are leftist environmentalists.  They complain about high gasoline prices but do not support any workable solutions, preferring instead to try to make us believe the oil companies are evil and deserve to be taxed heavily, that'll teach 'em, how dare they charge so much for their product!   

But I"ll wager the locals in some third world countries would give their right arms to get someone to come and produce oil, to employ locals in high paying jobs, to add to the tax base for these countries so they can have more money to spend on public projects, to improve their standard of living.

Liberals, of course, think none of these things should happen.  They do not believe these people should have the human dignity of earning their living.  They prefer that third world citizens should remain impoverished, so that liberals can have rock concerts to raise awareness for their plight, and to blame Bush for not donating enough to their cause.

The liberal solution is rarely an actual solution.  It usually costs you even more, even while acknowledging you're paying too much in the first place.  And it usually requires a villain for you to hate, so you'll accept his punishment on the grounds that he had it coming to him.

Never mind that punishing a manufactured villain does nothing at all for you.  It doesn't reduce the price you pay or increase the supply of a needed commodity.  But don't you feel better, now that the bad guy got what's coming to him?

Me neither.

I wonder if this means anything to Gavin Newsome, mayor of San Francisco and recently heard bragging about his city being a welcoming place for illegal aliens....  a "sanctuary city"..... 

Here's the relevant text from the Fox News story to which Michelle Malkin links today--

A federal law enforcement source confirmed to FOX News that the three — Dritan "Anthony" or "Tony" Duka, 28; Shain Duka, 26; and Eljvir "Elvis" Duka, 23 — also accumulated 19 traffic citations, but because they operated in "sanctuary cites," where law enforcement does not routinely report illegal immigrants to homeland security, none of the tickets raised a red flag.

This business of flouting immigration law to win political favor from Mexicans, hispanics, illegal aliens who may vote in the future, it's GOT TO STOP.

They are playing dangerous games and wagering our lives to do it.

Here's a nice update on the current troubles of Mr. Paul Wolfowitz courtesy of WSJ.  It includes connections and possible motivations, which are always nice to understand when trying to get a grip on the stories about which the press speaks so elliptically.

IN brief, Wolfowitz became president of the World Bank while currently involved with a woman who worked there.  He considered his conflict of interest, and then made an appeal to the Board to recuse himself from all professional dealings with her.  He couldn't be both her boss and her boyfriend.

The Board, though, said no.  They told him he had to deal with it, and that they would review and approve of his choices.

So an uncomfortable Wolfowitz called the State Dept and asked if they could use her.  They said yes, and then worked out a pay package for her, without consulting Wolfowitz.  It was a nice raise, to be sure, but Wolfowitz had nothing to do with those negotiations, only with finding her the job. 

Wolfowitz then submitted the plan to the Board, and they approved it.  Twice.  He has the paperwork.

Now, of course, they are claiming he violated bank policy on conflict-of-interest, precisely the charge he tried to avoid by recusing himself. 

The World Bank, much like the United Nations, is a totally corrupt institution.  They give away money, and can only give it to sitting governments.  There is little or no accountability, and the money vanishes more often than not into the pockets of members of these governments.  Some, I'm sure, is kicked back.  Wolfowitz, seriously attempting to improve the plight of the world's poor, wants to put an end to this.

The people who run this scam are understandably reluctant to give it up.  And Wolfowitz is insisting that they do just that.  So they are trying to run him out of town on a rail, so to speak.

Of course, the press fails to mention that Wolfowitz has the facts on his side.  They refer over and over again to the 'scandal' without any mention at all of the facts.   And with each day they seem to think that his position grows weaker, as if the passage of time makes the facts less relevant.  "How long can Bush continue to support him?", they ask, and then they speculate on the answer.   

I give President Bush credit for continuing to support Wolfowitz, who is an idealist and a corruption fighter.   But I don't reckon his chances are good.  Because those who profit from corruption will fight like wildcats to keep the money flowing.   The good guys are seldom ready to put up a fight of equal intensity.

It's a nauseating sight to see.